Russia to decommission world's largest submarines

MOSCOW, Sept. 29 (Xinhua) -- Russia would decommission the world's largest strategic submarines by 2014, the Defense Ministry said Thursday.

Russia cannot keep the three Akula-class submarines of "Dmitry Donskoy", "Arkhangelsk" and "Severstal" on service at the same time, because of restrictions imposed by the new Russian-U.S. strategic arms reduction treaty (START), Moscow's Izvestia daily reported.

Under the new START treaty, both Russia and the United States must cut the number of their nuclear warheads to 1,550, roughly a 30-percent reduction from the previous treaty that expired last December.

Russia will also sell metal scraps of the three submarines, as it makes no sense to refurbish these submarines into cargo vessels due to high costs, the newspaper reported, citing the Defense Ministry.

Military experts say Russia has successfully tested new generation submarines of Borei-class, which required 1.5 times less crew and was less costly to maintain, said the newspaper.